Broken Social Scene

Some people get home at night, neatly undress, and place their clothes in tidy piles. Real human beings, though, throw their shit all over the floor and drunkenly stub their toes on half-eaten pots of Chef Boyardee as they stumble to their unmade beds. Broken Social Scene plays it both ways: As poised and assured as the Canadian ensemble's third and self-titled album is, there's raw, messy humanity pumping like a crumpled beer can at its core. All of the group's requisite pieces are here -- disembodied melody, knee-buckling sweetness, fluttery rhythms -- only they're strewn about with such passion and life-affirming force that it's impossible not to get caught up in the sheer joy of the thing. Yeah, these songs are sprawling, like a cat yawning, or a map across your lap on a road trip, or urban growth cluttering up coastlines with its cold, hideous beauty. Sprawl: That just about says it all.

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